Tag: employees

Ontario Court Allows Salespersons to Ignore Noncompetes

by Brian Smeenk In an important recent decision, Ontario’s Court of Appeal has reconfirmed that noncompetition clauses will be enforced against departing employees only in exceptional circumstances. It allowed two insurance salespersons to take many of their clients to a competing insurance broker despite their contractual agreement to the contrary. What happened? Tim Allan and […]

Dealing with People You Can’t Stand

Employment law attorney Michael Maslanka reviews the business book Dealing with People You Can’t Stand: How to Bring Out the Best in People at Their Worst by Rick Brinkman and Rick Kirschner. Review covers four steps from the book for dealing with “yes” people. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And there […]

Coping with Difficult People

Employment law attorney Michael Maslanka reviews the book Coping with Difficult People: The Proven-Effective Battle Plan that Has Helped Millions Deal with the Troublemakers in Their Lives at Home and Work. Review focuses on book’s profiles of employees who cause supervisors, managers, and coworkers stress and tips for how to deal with those employees. Coping […]

Is wrongful dismissal litigation reform coming to Canada?

by Karen Sargeant Can fired employees afford to take their prior employers to court? Are trials too expensive? Are there better ways to secure justice for employees? These are some of the questions a group of lawyers in Ontario, Canada, have been considering. Earlier this year, the Chief Justice of Ontario expressed concerns that employees […]

Lose Weight, Gain a Lawsuit

Litigation value: ($500,000 when all is said and done, mainly to Phyllis and Kelly) Wow, it certainly didn’t take the folks at Dunder Mifflin long to get into midseason form! And from a liability perspective, that’s not good. When corporate initiated a weight-loss competition among all the branches, the Scranton branch sprang into action. While […]

45 Effective Ways for Hiring Smart

Employment law attorney Michael Maslanka reviews the book 45 Effective Ways for Hiring Smart by Pierre Mornell. Review  contains tips for hiring the best employee, from interview questions to checking references. Recently, I ran across an excellent book, 45 EFFECTIVE WAYS FOR HIRING SMART: How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading […]

Tyson Foods: a lesson in religious tolerance, community relations

Tyson Foods is going a long way toward making employees of all religious persuasions happy. At least that’s the case at its plant in Shelbyville, Tennessee. About 700 of the 1,200 employees there came to the United States as political refugees from Somalia, and most of those 700 employees are Muslim. Recently, the Tyson plant’s […]

Are all religious holidays created equal?

One might think that the paid holidays an employer chooses to offer its employees is a matter for the employer and its employees. However, when Tyson Foods announced that Labor Day would be replaced with Eid al-Fitr as a paid holiday in its Shelbyville, Tennessee, plant, the response from the public was swift and harsh. […]

Companies lauded for diversity still have far to go

“Diversity Practices that Work: The American Worker Speaks,” a two-year national study of 5,500 workers, was conducted by Global Lead Management Consulting on behalf of the National Urban League to answer four questions: What do American workers think about diversity? How do the perceptions of employees in “effective diversity practices companies” compare with American workers […]

Renhill settles with EEOC on age discrimination, race discrimination, and retaliation suit

Fort Wayne staffing company Renhill Services, Inc., has settled a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for retaliation and age and race discrimination. The company will pay $580,000 and up to $5,000 in settlement administrative expenses, according to the EEOC. The EEOC charged that Renhill violated federal law by failing to refer […]